My aim is to offer insights into some of the more subtle principles underpinning prints. The commentary is based on thirty-eight years of teaching and the prints and other collectables that I am focusing on are those which I have acquired over the years.
In the galleries of prints (accessed by clicking the links immediately below) I am also adding fresh images offered for sale. If you get lost in the maze of links, simply click the "home" button to return to the blog discussions.

Etchings with plate tone on laid paper
with margins (as published) and backed on a support sheet.

UPPER IMAGE:

Either a proof before the Cadart’s published
state or (more likely) a state after publication (based on the difference to
the plate size and traces of burnished image), signed in pencil (below the
platemark at lower left) and stamped with an oval red ink cartouche (below the
platemark at centre). (I have not been able to confirm whether this is the
artist’s stamp or a collector’s stamp, but my reading of the text contained in
the cartouche shows “1r. etat” [trans. “first state”].)

Condition: richly inked and well-printed
impressions with generous margins and each backed with a support sheet of
archival (millennium quality) washi paper. Both sheets are in excellent
condition (i.e. there are no tears, holes, folds, abrasions, significant stains
or foxing).

I am selling this pair of etchings
showing different states of the same print, for the total cost of AU$240
(currently US$178.05/EUR153.61/GBP138.18 at the time of this listing) including
postage and handling to anywhere in the world (but not, of course, any import
duties/taxes imposed by some countries).

If you are interested in purchasing this
pair of etchings, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will
send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

Forgive me if my description of this
scene is terribly flawed, but I believe that what is portrayed is an event
during the Franco-Prussian war (1870–71) when maverick riflemen from the villages
of Les Ternes, acting under the banner of the French National Guard, sought to
defend France from German domination.

The reason that I am sharing this print,
however, has little to do with the significance of the portrayed scene.
Instead, what fascinates me is the artist’s adjustments to what is shown from
the published state impression lettered with the title of the print to the
later state impression where the size of the platemark show the printing plate
has reduced in size.

Note, for instance, that the chair in the foreground
changes from a square seat in the published state to a round one in the later
print. Note also the changes to the foliage in the distance separating each
print and even how the figure on the far left is altered so that he no longer turns
his head towards the viewer and banishes a pistol but carries a rifle as he struts
away from the viewer.

From a personal standpoint, I see the
alterations to the composition as adding a dimension of mystery and intrigue to
the scene. To my eyes, the slightly fuzzy rendering of details in the later
state gives me scope to “feel” intuitively the tension of the moment depicted. By contrast,
the focal clarity of the published state, tends to freeze-frame the portrayed
scene to a split second of objective reality that does not give me the same latitude
for a personal response.